If you've searched for an IPA converter, two names come up again and again: ToPhonetics and EasyPronunciation. They're both genuinely useful, they've both been around long enough to earn their reputations, and they solve slightly different problems.
This is an objective head-to-head — what each one does well, where each one stops, and who should pick which. At the end I'll introduce a third option that approaches the same goal from the workflow side rather than the converter side. Full disclosure up front: that third option is our tool, IPAtics.
ToPhonetics — the free English workhorse
ToPhonetics is the tool most people land on first, and for good reason. Paste English text into the box, get accurate IPA out, in both General American and British transcription. There's no account, no paywall, and no clutter. Browser-based text-to-speech reads the text back to you.
For occasional English lookups, it's hard to beat. It's fast for what it does, it's free, and it doesn't ask anything of you.
Where it stops:
- English only. No other languages.
- No flashcard or Anki export.
- You leave whatever you were reading to paste into the box and copy the result back.
If you read English-language material and just need an occasional transcription, ToPhonetics is the right call and you can stop reading here.
EasyPronunciation — the multi-language converter
EasyPronunciation goes wider. It covers around 38 language varieties, includes recorded audio for many of them, and produces reliable transcriptions. That breadth is its real strength — if your target language isn't English, this is one of the few converters that has you covered at all.
It's a paid product. Access is roughly $45 for lifetime or credit-based plans, depending on what you choose, and the free allowance is limited. The interface is dated, but the underlying transcriptions are dependable.
Where it stops:
- Paid for meaningful use; the free tier is thin.
- No global hotkey or in-context workflow — it's still a paste-in-a-box site.
- Audio quality varies by language.
- No flashcard export.
If you study one or two non-English languages and want a reliable converter with audio, EasyPronunciation earns its price.
Head-to-head
| | ToPhonetics | EasyPronunciation | |---|---|---| | Languages | English only | ~38 varieties | | Audio | Browser TTS | Recorded, varies by language | | Price | Free | ~$45 (lifetime/credits), thin free tier | | Account needed | No | For paid features | | In-context use | No (paste-in-box) | No (paste-in-box) | | Anki / export | No | No | | Best for | Occasional English lookups | Reliable multi-language conversion |
Both are converters: you bring text to them, they hand back IPA, and the rest of the workflow — hearing it, saving it, drilling it — is on you and your other tools.
A third option: the in-context workflow
The thing both converters share is that they live in a separate tab. You're reading a PDF, an article, a subtitle, or a chat, and to get IPA you stop, switch, paste, copy, and switch back. For one word that's fine. For the twentieth word of the day it's friction that adds up.
IPAtics takes the converter idea and removes the tab. It's a desktop app for macOS and Windows that sits in the background. Select any text in any application, press Alt+Q (Option+Q on Mac), and the IPA appears in a floating overlay right where you're working — for example, hello /həˈloʊ/ in US English or /həˈləʊ/ in UK English, bonjour /bɔ̃.ʒuʁ/ in French, mariposa /ma.ɾi.ˈpo.sa/ in Spanish.
What it adds on top of plain conversion:
- 14 language varieties with auto-detection — English (US & UK), German, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese (BR), Japanese, Korean, Mandarin Chinese, Russian, Turkish, and Arabic (MSA).
- Tap any IPA symbol to see its phonetic name and example words.
- Native text-to-speech on every transcription.
- AI-generated Anki cards at your CEFR level, synced through the free AnkiConnect add-on — six card types, from vocabulary to minimal pairs.
- Phoneme-level speech analysis that records you and scores your pronunciation sound by sound.
The free tier covers 10 transcriptions a day, 20-character selections, 20 saved words, and 5 lifetime Anki exports on one device. Premium is €4.99/month or €39.99/year for unlimited transcriptions, 100-character selections, unlimited saved words and cards, and up to three devices. There's no lifetime plan. If you'd rather not install anything, the free web converter handles a few words per request right in the browser, no signup.
Which should you pick?
Pick honestly by need:
- Occasional English, nothing else? ToPhonetics. Free, instant, no reason to add a tool.
- One or two non-English languages, converter is enough? EasyPronunciation. Its language breadth and recorded audio are real, and the one-time-ish price is reasonable for steady use.
- You read across apps daily, want IPA plus audio, saving, and Anki in one place? That's the workflow IPAtics was built for.
If a converter already fits how you work, there's no reason to change. The case for a workflow tool is purely about how often you reach for IPA and whether tab-switching has become a tax.
For a wider survey of the field, see the best IPA transcription tools. For deeper feature breakdowns of the two tools above, see IPAtics vs ToPhonetics and IPAtics vs EasyPronunciation. And if you just want IPA for a handful of words right now, the free online converter is the fastest way to start.